562 TRANSACTIONS AND PROCEEDINGS OF THE 



towards the exterior of the thallus, repeats this branching 

 in an especially copious manner. There is thus formed a 

 a dense tuft of variable thickness, composed of thin fila- 

 ments with short elements, and showing a copious mono- 

 podial branching. This is penetrated by the previously 

 existing somewhat stronger cell filaments of the cortical 

 tissue, whicli is locally a little compressed. 



Xow, in this tuft of filaments, the stronger branch 

 directed towards the exterior of the thallus becomes fertile 

 throughout its whole extent, its component cells all 

 swelling up, and with the exception of the one to three lower- 

 most ripening into spores. The other weaker branchlets 

 of the tuft usually form a rather loose tuft of short rhizoid- 

 like filaments, which project towards the interior of the 

 thallus from the lower ends of the swollen fertile branches. 

 The component cells of these fertile branches, as they 

 swell up into spores, cohere together laterally with increas- 

 ing closeness, and so form in a short time a dense mass of 

 spores with a roundish outline embedded in the tissue of 

 the wall, which at this point always projects outwards to 

 a considerable extent. This rounded mass of spores, 

 however, appears to be permanently pierced by separate 

 branched or unbranched filaments and strands of sterile 

 cortical tissue. "When more completely ripe it causes the 

 formation on the exterior of a protuberance of varying 

 height, but always very distinctly raised above the outer 

 surface of the thallus. 



It follows from this mode of development that the 

 " cystocarps " of G. /areata are asexual in origin, in the 

 same way as the sporangia which proceeded them on the 

 same plants. They are, therefore, not homologous with 

 the cystocarps of E. cervicornis, and do not in any 

 way represent true cystocarps, but are to be considered as 

 paraspore fruits, analogous to the paraspore fruits and 

 paraspore complexes which have been described in another 

 place ^ for Flumaria elegans, Antithamnion plumula, 

 Scirospora GriffitJisiana, etc. 



In contrast with those fruiting examples of G. furcata, 

 the few specimens in fruit of G. capillaris which I found 



^ Comp. for example Fr. Schmitz, Die G&ttang Microthamnion, J. Ag., 

 in Ber. d. Deutch. Bot. Geselisch. 1893, p. 285. 



